


glass

by placeless



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: I was tired when I wrote this, Immortality, M/M, a feeling of being lost, patrick is the bartender if you couldn't tell, pete is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-11 23:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4457213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placeless/pseuds/placeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>pete doesn't age</p>
            </blockquote>





	glass

long ago, people called it a gift. a rare gift that he should be happy for. but he always disagreed, and now there were no more people left in his life to tell him otherwise.

/

at first, pete sought out adventure in the most exciting of ways. he hopped on wild stallions and tried to stay on; he jumped out of planes into freezing water; he climbed mountains and biked rough trails and tried to live a life full of lovers and friends and journeys.

but then those lovers and friends started growing old. the journeys started losing their appeal because there was nobody to go on them with. he watched as everyone around him had spouses and children and, eventually, grandchildren. he watched as they all wilted like sunflowers in the winter. and he watched with sullen eyes as they were all put in caskets, making vows with the ground instead of lovers — _‘till infinity do us part._

now, pete seeks out adventure in the dullest of ways. he goes on midnight drives; he drinks a bit too much; he runs out in front of cars and watches as the people driving them hit the brakes, yelling unintelligible things; he snorts cocaine in dark alleyways with prostitutes leaned up against him.

there is no religion for him. there is no god. there is only himself and the time — the time that always seems to leave him behind.

/

he owns a house in a town he doesn’t know the name of. people leave him alone, which is what he wants — he doesn’t want anybody to remember him. he doesn’t want anybody to think of him as they lie on their death bed, and think of how odd it is that there is a boy who never ages. he doesn’t want to be anybody’s mystery. he just wants to be pete, who lives a life that will never end.

somewhere in venezuela live his great-great-great-great grandchildren. they don’t know he exists, and neither do their parents, or their grandparents. they all just assume peter lewis kingston wentz iii died long, long ago, in a time they’ve never seen and never will.

although, pete sometimes thinks that he did die then. now all that’s left is a shell of what once was.

/

there’s a bar in seattle that he goes to on cold winter nights, when he wants company not in the form of cheap alcohol and bad music but instead in expensive alcohol and good music. the bartender is young with a nice smile, and whenever he talks to pete he talks in music notes and rhythms. he speaks words filled with harmony and happiness, and pete likes him.

he’s sitting at the counter now, staring blankly into an empty glass. the bartender — whose name he will never learn, because learning someone’s name means knowing them, and he doesn’t know anybody — is wiping the counter down and stops in front of him. “we’re going to close soon. you got anybody to pick you up?”

his hair falls into his face as he shakes his head. “no,” he says — his voice hasn’t been used for awhile. it sounds old and creaks like rusty door hinges, and he knows he should use it more, but he has no one to talk to.

“want me to walk you to the bus station?” the bartender asks. “you could catch a bus home from there.”

he shakes his head again and gets up, wobbling to the door. “it’s fine. i… i’ll manage.” and before he can hear an argument, he walks out, letting the snow fall on him in thin layers.

passing pan-handlers and more drunk people, he just walks. he has nobody to meet, nowhere to be — he could disappear off the face of the earth and nobody would care. not even the bartender.

the thought leaves a heavy ache in his heart and his walk turns into a trudge. he sits down on a bench after a couple minutes and looks up, staring at the night sky. it’s polluted and he can’t see the stars, but it maintains the beauty it’s had for so long. he wonders how many things have changed in space since he was born. he wonders if there’s an alternate earth with a person exactly like him roaming around, lost in a haze of _i don’t know what to do._

“are you okay?” a strange voice asks, and he looks up to see a tall, lanky guy standing in front of him, hands stuffed inside his pockets.

he blinks. “um, yeah. yeah, i am.”

“because you don’t look okay,” the stranger continues. “i mean, you’ve got this sort of… lost vibe surrounding you. also, you reek of alcohol. that usually means one’s not okay.”

“i’m fine.” he leans back a bit. “really. and even if i weren’t, i wouldn’t want to talk to a stranger about it.”

the guy tilts his head to the side but nods sharply, probably more for himself than pete. then he’s gone, leaving pete in the cold snow, on the cold bench, an empty feeling pitted inside of him.

/

the next time pete sees the stranger is a month later, on the same bench. “are you following me?” pete asks as the other man takes a seat next to him, wrapping his jacket tighter around his body.

“no, i’m not,” he says, and he’s being honest. “i just remembered you from that one freezing night awhile ago, and i realised that you still don’t look okay, so i decided to come sit over here.”

pete’s lips quirk down into a frown. “why do you think i’m not okay?”

“because you’re staring into the distance with an empty expression,” he says simply. “that’s generally what people who aren’t okay do.”

“and what do you intend to do about me not being okay?”

the stranger smiles and he stands up, reaching out his hand. “i’m mikey way, and i intend to help get you better.”

/

mikey is strange because he doesn’t get tired of pete. he comes to his house and watches as he mopes, as he pushes food around on his plate and whines, and he doesn’t do anything but smile. it’s almost unnerving, and pete would dislike mikey, but somehow he can’t.

they see each other more and more, and pete wants to push him away. he really, really wants to — but he just can’t. maybe it’s something in the way mikey talks, or the way he walks, _anything_ , but pete just can’t bring himself to push away like he’s done with so many others.

one saturday, mikey brings him to a glass museum. pete doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t question because mikey won’t answer.

as they stand in front of a giant statue of a girl staring into the distance, he says, “it’s almost like people themselves are made of glass.”

“what do you mean?”

“we’re all so fragile,” he says, “it’s like… we can break at any time. psychically or mentally. and it’s… bizarre.”

pete smiles. “but everything’s bizarre, mikey. you just have to learn to pick the mad out of the bizarre, and to then appreciate the mad.”

/

“what are you looking for, pete?” mikey asks one night. pete isn’t sure when it happened, but they’re both huddled under the covers of his bed, embracing the other’s warmth.

he frowns. “i’m looking for a way to kill myself and dump the body without anyone finding out.”

the other man looks at him for a couple of moments, before nodding. he sinks lower into the bed. “okay.”

/

“i don’t know what to do.” pete buries his face in his arms. “i don’t know what to _fucking_ do.”

“you’re just lost,” mikey says from next to him, voice soothing. “and when you’re lost, you just want it to be yesterday. but you have to realise that you have nowhere to go but tomorrow.”

pete looks at him through hazy eyes, a smile etched on his lips. he leans into his chest and murmurs, “but everything’s blurred together.”

“then get a pair of glasses,” mikey says in a hushed tone, and pete snorts a laugh.

they lie on the sofa after that, each sunken into the other. and pete thinks that the world outside is someone else’s, but in here it’s all theirs.

/

mikey talks about his brother a lot, and how pete should meet him. but he doesn’t know if he can handle more people in his life, so he just smiles politely and says, “maybe.”

they go on dates at bad restaurants, but neither of them mind. they laugh and drink cheap wine and talk about what could be, and for once in the past seventy years, everything in pete’s life is great.

but great things are only temporary.

/

it’s midnight and pete is staring at his hands. he isn’t sure why, but somehow it makes him feel better. they’re something to focus on — something to take his mind off all the other things. not that it’s working, though.

he’s thinking of mikey, of course. he always seems to these days. pete was never a planner, but long ago he decided that he would live the rest of his existence — however long that is — without the company of anybody that mattered. but then mikey arrived, all lanky limbs and stupid smiles, and now pete doesn’t know what to do.

he leans back in the purple armchair that’s been in his living room for ages and stares at the ceiling. mikey is in his bedroom, fast asleep, unaware of the thoughts that are going through his mind, and pete thinks that that’s what’s best for him.

chewing his finger absentmindedly, he looks at an old picture of venice sitting next to his tv. it’s grainy and in black and white and contains all his old friends — ryan, joe, brendon, andy, hayley, greta… they’re all happy, wearing bizarre hats that were in style then and insanely happy grins. a pang of sadness hits him and he gets up, taking the photo in his hands and staring at it.

when the morning comes, mikey will wake up with pete nowhere to be found. all he’ll have is the faint memory of a broken smile and a note to remember him by.

_mikey,_  
_eventually, i will destroy you in the way you’ve destroyed me. i’m not dying, but i’m leaving. you won’t see me again._  
_i love you_  
_pete_

/

 _one more to join the rest,_ pete thinks as he places a single rose on top of a fresh gravestone.

_here lies michael james way, beloved husband, grandfather, son, and friend. 1980-2065._

**Author's Note:**

> i kill people in my fics a lot. whoops.
> 
> i realise that this was really abrupt and there was no sex and most of this was just them talking in bullshit 'poetry' to one another but it's 3.30 here and i'm tired and this was bouncing around in my mind so you cannot judge me


End file.
